


Fervour, Amour, Succour

by elephantfootprints



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elephantfootprints/pseuds/elephantfootprints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They know it the first time they meet. How can they not? That pull, that intensity of feeling. They cannot resist one another. Their very souls cry out for one another. It is nearly overwhelming, feeling suddenly whole when you had no idea you were only a half.</i>
</p><p>What do you do if you find your soulmate, but you don't want to be together? What if you find yourself in love with someone else? How do you convince them to chose you over the chance at perfect happiness?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fervour, Amour, Succour

**Author's Note:**

> From the [prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21766.html?thread=128454150#t128454150): Breaking the soulmate trope - Sherlock/anyone
> 
> Everyone everywhere has a soulmate. They are meant to be together; they are the definition of perfection. 
> 
> Sherlock and Irene are soulmates, but they want nothing to do with each other. There is the usual irresistible pull, but mainly they are friends. It's [person] Sherlock wants, but can he truly break away from his soulmate and accept another? 
> 
> And can he convince [person] he is better than any soulmate they might find? 
> 
> I'd like to see this usual trope broken. Who says you have to be with a soulmate? One true love, pah! Look at Howl's Moving Castle ;)
> 
> Beta'd by the marvellous [Holes in the Sky](theresholesinthesky.tumblr.com).

_Fervour_

They know it the first time they meet. How can they not? That pull, that intensity of feeling. They cannot resist one another. Their very souls cry out for one another. It is nearly overwhelming, feeling suddenly whole when you had no idea you were only a half.

“Irene Adler,” she says, curving her red lips in a wicked smile.

“Sherlock Holmes,” he replies, feeling temporarily thrown.

Irene swings her hips as she walks over to him, pushing him down onto the couch, and starts some provocative banter. It takes Sherlock a few moments to recover, from both the reeling sensations of meeting your soulmate for the first time, and the fact that she is a criminal dominatrix who has forgone clothing and invaded his personal space, but he manages to come back in fine form with only the barest hiccup. They exchange witticisms, barbs and cutting comments, constantly raising the stakes, feeling giddy and like they are the most intelligent people in the world, reaching intellectual heights humans have only dreamed of.

When John returns to the room, he stops dead at the sight.

“What’s going on?” John says. He has to force his gaze from Irene so he can look questioningly at Sherlock.

“We’re soulmates,” Irene says easily.

“Oh. Right,” John looks back and forth between them. At Irene’s predatory nudity and Sherlock’s inability to look away from Irene. “Do you, uh, want me to go?”

“No need, John,” Sherlock says calmly. Irene grins.

“Oh, we like an audience, do we, Mr Holmes?”

It takes everything in him not to splutter, but Sherlock manages, mostly by ignoring her. “John, sit down and do stop staring.” 

John hasn’t thought of Sherlock having a soulmate. It had just been impossible to picture a person who could possibly be the other half of such a strange man, the perfect match to such an esoteric creature. Looking at Irene now, however, hearing how she could meet, match and even outdo every verbal offering, seeing how fierce, fearless, keenly aware of her own brilliance, utterly gorgeous, vibrant and strangely ethereal she was, John can easily believe that this woman was Sherlock’s soulmate.

For six months, Sherlock’s life lights up as it never has before. He and Irene only interact directly that first day, when she manages to outsmart him, but the experience leaves him sharper than ever before and full of a seemingly inextinguishable source of energy. She sends him flirty texts, and he leaves dry remarks all over his website and John’s blog for her to find. Until of course, she dies and he is made to identify the body. After that, it is as though he is drained not only of the spirit she produced in him, but also stripped of the joys he found before hand.

He spends a long time mourning her, refusing all the while to admit that is what he is doing. John, Mrs Hudson and Mycroft are beside themselves all the while, feeling helpless as they offer support, love, tea, and slowly help him cope with the loss.

Then she comes back. It was the perfect story. Love lost; love gained. She had proved herself able to outsmart him, invigorating Sherlock to improve himself. Her death shatters him in such a way that it is no wonder she came back to life to glue him back together.

John hates her for it. He is furious when he finds out she is alive, and agrees to meet her to let her know how badly she has treated his friend. But everything he has to say is waylaid by a single, rather errant comment.

“We’re not a couple,” John says, feeling wrong footed. “You, of all people, should know that. You’re soulmates for Christ’s sake.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re not a couple,” Irene says, still looking at her phone. John huffed a sigh of annoyance and Irene looked over at him.

“Is that what this whole thing was about?” John says. “You were what? Upset? Angry? And you decided to punish him? Hurt him in return?”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Irene says. “I find it sort of sweet, his devotion to you, and you to him. No, I had much larger things on my mind. I needed to be dead. And if Sherlock didn’t believe it, no-one would.”

“So why are you back? You know I won’t keep this from him,” John says.

“Of course you won’t,” Irene says. “In fact, I’m rather relying on it.”

And just like that, their lives are once more swept up in Irene’s destructive forces. Sherlock is brighter than ever, capable of dazzling new feats, spurred on by Irene matching him beat for beat. It’s a flurry of endless excitement, exhilaration that neither had ever known could exist, their partnership is consuming. It doesn’t take long for them to realise how easily and inevitably they will burn each other out. Both utterly unable to back down, even as the risks went beyond what they were willing to give up. If they stayed together, their lives would be extraordinary, but end quickly and devastatingly.

“Well,” Irene says irreverently. “That was the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

“That’s quite a compliment,” Sherlock rejoins easily. “Given what you do for a living.”

Irene grins. “Keep him sharp for me, John Watson, I may need to use him again one day.”

*

_Amour_

“Are you alright?” John asks once Irene has left their flat.

“Of course,” Sherlock says, sounding slightly surprised. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason,” John says. “Not like you’ve just said goodbye to your soulmate or anything. Tea?”

Surprisingly Sherlock is alright. His behaviour is slightly more subdued, but that seems to be a natural result of having lived at an extreme for a long time. In point of fact, he was actually slightly keener than before he had ever met Irene. There are of course side effects and hangovers, as would be expected from such an intense relationship. He is quicker to interject clever, if cutting, comments into conversation or murmuring them into John’s ear, making him laugh or glare at unexpected moments. He’s more comfortable with sexual innuendoes and euphemisms, a fact which disturbs John when he thinks about it for more than a moment. He is more careful about his appearance, even when sulking around the flat, not tidier or more fashionable, mind, but more deliberate and dramatic. And strangely enough, he’s more inclined to touch John. From brushes of finger tips when handing something over, to manhandling when Sherlock thought John wasn’t moving quickly enough, the personal bubbles between them have simply disappeared.

Somehow, against all odds, they manage to settle back into their lives at 221b, and it is almost as if Irene had never existed. Unfortunately, it had somehow gotten out that Sherlock had met his soulmate, and it is inevitable that the news of her departure and endless sympathy, pity and scorn will soon follow.

“So how’s Mrs Freak?” Sally asks one day at a crime scene.

Sherlock ignores her and continues to inspect the corpse. This is Sherlock’s usual response to Sally’s question, and Sally would think nothing of it, but for John’s fleeting wince. Sally seems less surprised to find that Sherlock has lost a soulmate than she was to find he had one in the first place, but her desire to commiserate is obvious, and her ability to stay silent is appreciated. Sherlock doesn’t even flinch when she hesitantly claps him on the arm before going through the details of the crime.

“I hear Irene left you?” Lestrade comments quietly, sympathetically, as they are handing over the last of the evidence Sherlock has been hoarding. Sherlock levels Lestrade a cool look before sweeping out of the room.

“It was mutual,” John feels compelled to say. “They were going to get each other killed. Everyone could see that.”

Lestrade nods, understanding. He had seen them in action more than once. “Still, has to be rough. I can’t imagine willingly leaving my soulmate.”

John shrugs. “He’s Sherlock. He’s genuinely fine. God only knows how, but he is.”

When Sherlock and John arrive back at the flat, Sherlock surprises John by pinning him against the wall and kissing him, enthusiastically, but rather inexpertly. It takes John a few moments to process what is happening and the kiss is over before John can shove him away.

“What was that?” John asks, slightly out of breath and somehow unable to summon the anger he thinks he ought to have.

“That was a kiss. I kissed you,” Sherlock replies. “Do pay attention. I hate to repeat myself, but if I must, I will do it again.”

“Yes, alright, Sherlock,” John says. “Just stop being a smart arse for two seconds and tell me why you kissed me?”

“Surely even you can work that out,” Sherlock says, rolling his eyes. “There are only a limited number of scenarios in which a person will be compelled to kiss another. Allowing for our particular circumstances, I think we can narrow it down to these three: in order to communicate affection, romantic or sexual feelings; to force silence on the other; as part of an experiment.”

“Given that I wasn’t even thinking about anything loud, it must be the third,” John says, quirking an indulgent smile. “Go on then, what theory are you testing?”

“There’s no theory,” Sherlock says, crowding John back against the wall and leaning down to brush his lips over John’s jaw.

“What?” John says, this time managing to find his wits enough to push Sherlock away.

“There’s no theory, no experiment, you weren’t too loud,” Sherlock says, starting to sound irritated. “Leaving only one option: kissing as a way of expressing affection, romantic and sexual desire.”

“You... desire me?” John says slowly.

“Yes.”

“And you want to kiss me?”

“Obviously,” Sherlock says. “And for the sake of expediency, I’ll let you know I also want to have sex with you, and commit to a long-term monogamous, sexual and romantic relationship with you.”

“But,” John licks his lips, trying to work out how to phrase this delicately. “You’re not my soulmate.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I am aware of this fact, John. It somehow didn’t manage to escape my notice.”

John stares at him. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand?” Sherlock says

“Am I... a replacement for Irene?” John asks, feeling faintly nauseous. Sherlock recoils slightly. 

“No,” he says firmly. “My interest in you is entirely separate to my interest in Irene.”

“How, precisely?” John says.

“My interest in Irene was purely intellectual,” Sherlock says. “As hers was in me.”

“You didn’t sleep with her?” John says.

“No.”

“But you want to sleep with me?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says. 

“Right, okay,” John says. “Look, I’m obviously flattered, and christ knows you’re bloody gorgeous and ordinarily I’d be jumping at a chance to sleep with you, but I think even something casual would risk ruining our friendship and-”

“Casual?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, you and Irene mightn’t have worked out, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be like the rest of the world and end up happy with my soulmate,” John says. “So all we could be would be something temporary.”

“You’re rejecting me for someone you’ve never met?” Sherlock says, sounding incredulous. There’s a hint of hurt there too. “For someone you might never meet? For someone who might not exist? For someone you might not even want?”

“I-” John is at a loss. When Sherlock says it like that, it seems stupid to wait, to holdout for an idea to materialise. But that’s what he’s been raised to do. What everyone’s been raised to do. When you know there’s a soulmate out there for you, it seems absurd to settle for anything less. But to be with Sherlock - it wouldn’t really be ‘settling’. Sherlock’s not someone who has ever been described as second-rate. He’s brilliant, utterly brilliant and he has given John the chance at a new life full of adventure and laughter. 

And hell, he’s just seen how dangerous Sherlock and Irene made each other. John’s an ex-soldier, a man who misses war, who’s tremor disappears when faced with danger. If his soulmate matches those parts of him, who’s to say he would even survive them?

“Why now?” John asks finally.

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have something on?” Sherlock says. “If you were hoping to catch a Doctor Who repeats, we can talk about this later.”

“No, you git,” John says. “Before I can agree to anything, I need to know where you are coming from, we can’t start with any misunderstandings.”

Sherlock perks up slightly at this, although he seems almost bashful as he says, “Now just felt right.”

John nods, thinking about this. Then he thinks about what he is going to do. He thinks about how Sherlock feels about him. About how he feels about Sherlock. And it is as if there is a balloon in his chest, inflating, making it feel both uncomfortably full and absurdly light. A grin stretches across his face and he almost shivers as the feelings he didn’t even know he was suppressing flood his system. Sherlock grins back at him, and they are kissing again. The kissing intensifies and hands explore freely. When lust starts to build they retreat to Sherlock’s bedroom, and it’s somehow both incredibly strange and weirdly natural, and very, very right.

Within a week they have found themselves in love, though it takes John ten days before he is able to say it out loud and the look of tentative delight on Sherlock’s face makes him wish he had said it right away. Makes him wish he could have been saying it for years.

Two weeks after John starts sleeping with Sherlock, he meets Mary.

*

_Succour_

Life with Sherlock as his friend and life with Sherlock as his “we-kiss-because-we-are-expressing-affection-romantic-and-sexual-desire-and-have-agreed-to-commit-to-a-sexually-and-romantically-monogamous-long-term-relationship” or whatever term they were meant to use, aren’t all that different. It is still weird. It is still wonderful.

John keeps expecting something to change, because it feel like he’s living in a whole new world only everything looks the same as it did before. Of course when change does come, it has nothing to do with Sherlock whatsoever.

“I’m Mary,” she says. “Mary Morstan.”

“John Watson,” he replies instinctively. And oh, christ, he had no idea how right it would feel. They know, in those few words spoken, that they belong to one another. It’s like coming home, like coming home when you didn’t even know you had a home to come to. 

“Coffee?” Mary suggests.

They talk and they talk and they talk. Conversation is easy and laughter punctuates much of what they are saying. The coffee grows cold, the cafe starts to empty and still they have so much to say to one another. There’s no desperation or need to talk over one another, it’s a natural flow, a comfortable ebb, and John has never felt this way before. It is only when Mary reaches her hand out across the table to clasp his that John comes to himself, realises where he is, what he is doing. Remembers Sherlock.

“I’m with someone,” John says awkwardly. Mary seems confused. John doesn’t blame her. 

“You’re... with someone?” she repeats carefully, withdrawing her hand. John nods helplessly. “And it’s serious?”

“It is,” John says. For the first time since they met there is a silence, an uncomfortable, almost painful silence.

“Can I meet them?” Mary says finally. John hesitates, but nods. He owes her this much. 

John tries to explain Sherlock on the way home, but it’s hard. He can’t stop smiling stupidly at the mad things Sherlock gets up to, and even though they’ve only been dating for two weeks, the relationship is really much older than that, and certainly more important than such a short time span would imply. Mary, though, seems to understand.

“And you love him?” Mary says, keeping her voice steady.

“I do,” John says.

“Then I won’t ask you to leave him,” Mary says. “I just hope you know what you are doing.”

“Thank you.” John squeezes Mary’s hand briefly and she smiles softly at him.

Sherlock is buried in some cold case files when John enters the flat, Mary in tow, but he puts them aside immediately and jumps up before the door is even shut.

“This is Mary, she’s my...” John pauses, not wanting to make too big a deal of Mary, but also not wanting to dismiss her.

“Soulmate,” Sherlock says flatly. He rakes his eyes ever her once more, turns on his heel and leaves the room.

“Oh, Christ,” John says. “Look, Mary, sorry. I’ll be right back.”

Mary nods.

“Look, Sherlock, Mary is- she knows about you,” John says, catching Sherlock’s arm and easing into their bedroom before the door is slammed in his face. “I’ve explained and she’s fine with it. She just wanted to meet you.”

“Oh?” Sherlock sneers. “So you’ve come to an arrangement, then? She doesn’t mind if you continue to fuck me on the side, she just wanted to see what I looked like?”

“Sherlock!” John says, startled by Sherlock’s crudity. “That’s not it at all.”

“What is it then?” Sherlock says. His mocking bravado was wearing thin, fear and hurt seeping through the cracks. 

“I’m with you,” John says. “And she understands that. She’s not going to try and get between us, and I’m not leaving you for her. But she’s tied to me, and neither of us can do anything about that. It seemed fair that she got to meet the person I’ve chosen over her. It does affect her too, after all.”

Sherlock nods slowly.

“It’s fine,” John soothes. “It will all be okay.”

And for a little while it did look like things would be okay. Sherlock and John’s relationship was not as stable as it was before, the stress of Mary’s existence a constant weight, but they knew they could work through it. And they would have. But try as she might, Mary couldn’t cope with the rejection. She lasts a lot longer than most people when face with the severing of their newly stitched up soul, but there’s only so much sheer willpower can do when your soul is withering.

John tried to ease the process, spending lots of time with her, knowing how much better they both felt if they made the effort to even just have a meal together every day. Of course, it’s hard to tell if this plan is working when John is endlessly called away to assist Sherlock on cases, when he is unable to stay for dessert because Sherlock needs his laptop handed over, when he can’t go out because Sherlock needs John to send a text. John knows what Sherlock is doing, but he can’t even bring himself to be angry because the devastation he can sense in Sherlock when John does chose to stay with Mary one evening rather than come home to him is heart-breaking. The situation is impossible because John can no more hurt Sherlock than he can leave Mary to slowly lose her spark and ability to get out of bed in the morning, especially as he can feel a faint echo of everything she is suffering through. Given how much this is hurting Mary, John’s ashamed to admit how long it takes to build up the courage to talk to Sherlock about it, but Sherlock’s reaction is even worse than he expected.

“She’s barely a step above a stranger,” Sherlock spits. “She hasn’t been there for you. Showed you life was worth living. Given you purpose. Helped you to walk again. She’s _nothing_ to you.”

“She’s my soulmate,” John says quietly. Sherlock laughs hollowly.

“And what am I?”

“You’re-” John pauses, trying to work out how to answer.

“You said you loved me,” Sherlock says, after the silence had stretched beyond the point Sherlock could bear it.

“And I do,” John says earnestly. He steps closer to Sherlock and rests his hand on Sherlock’s jaw. Feeling utterly weak, Sherlock leans into the touch.

“But Mary-”

“Damn her!” Sherlock says, wrenching himself away from John and stalking over to the kitchen, grabbing uselessly at some of his lab equipment.

“Sherlock,” John says, his voice full of pain. “She’s fading away. I love you, I do, I truly do, but-”

“She’s not _literally_ fading away,” Sherlock snarls. 

“No,” John says. “But she’s disappearing, nonetheless. She’s losing the will to live. I can’t be responsible for that.”

“So that’s it then,” Sherlock sneers. “None of what we have been to one another, what we have done together, what we have endured, matters in the face of this bizarre glitch of nature.”

“Please Sherlock,” John says. “Just - have some compassion? You and Irene might be a bizarre story, but even you two were inseparable when you first met, you could barely last an hour without contacting one another. You know how this works. Don’t you remember how it felt when you thought Irene had died?”

Sherlock continues to glare at John, but fails to suppress a shudder at the recollection. 

“I can’t just leave her to waste away.”

Unbidden, Sherlock finds himself immersed in a memory of Irene kneeling, wrapped in black cloth. He can’t forget the weight of the sword, the surge of adrenaline that left him feeling strangely cold rather than the usual warmth of exhilaration. The knowledge that he had to save her, that saving her was the only option, the only possible outcome.

“No,” Sherlock says softly. “You can’t.”

“I just need you to help me, Sherlock,” John says. “To work with me instead of fighting against me.”

“I will,” Sherlock says. 

When they finally come up with a possible solution, it’s so absurdly obvious, they’re not sure how they managed to miss it for so long.

“There are those who seek romance outside of their soulmates,” John says. Mary frowns, confused, but clearly willing to listen.

“My soulmate was a professional dominatrix,” Sherlock offers. “Might still be one, I suppose.”

“Oh,” Mary says, with the air of someone who has found their footing once more. “Sex, sure, lots of people have sex with people who aren’t their soulmate. Do you really think sex can solve my problem?”

“I’m not suggesting you look for something casual-” John starts to say and Mary suddenly straightens, eyes brightening, understanding crossing her features.

“You want me to find my own Sherlock,” Mary says. “That’s how you’ve been surviving. They do something like this with people whose soulmates have died, don’t they?”

“It’s how we’ve managed to keep the death rate for that group so low,” John says. “I’ve never heard of forming romantic relationships outside of your soulmate as a prescription for people whose soulmates are alive, but then again, I guess our situation is a bit unusual.”

Mary manages a wry smile. “Somewhere between a bit unusual and bloody unprecedented I would say.” 

“You can be happy in a relationship with someone who isn’t your soulmate,” John continues. “It’s harder, it requires that you put in time and effort to make sure things are working. It certainly doesn’t come as naturally or as easily. But in some ways that just makes it more rewarding.”

Sherlock is staring at John, eyes very soft. John gives in to impulse and kisses him. Mary looks away, hiding a wince, but she is thrumming with the energy she’s been missing since she met John, since she met Sherlock.

“It can’t hurt to try,” Mary says.

It takes nearly six months before Mary finds someone she thinks she could make a go of it with, and closer to four years before she finds someone who can keep her interest for longer than a few dates. 

There’s more people out there willing to try dating someone who wasn’t their soulmate than even Sherlock had realised, but even so the pool is quite small, and it’s unsurprising that Mary has a hard time finding someone. It doesn’t matter too much, in the end, as Sherlock was able to make room for Mary in their lives, and she and John became close friends. And as it turns out, time and a lot of sheer bloody determination can heal a lot of wounds. When Irene came back, nearly ten years later, Sherlock spent three days trying to set Mary and Irene up, before Irene explained, laughing, that she and Kate weren’t just friends, and Mary explained that she had given up on dating, and was quite happy being single.

As for Sherlock and John, well, they’re not soulmates, it’s not perfect, it’s hard, and it gets messy and complicated at times. It takes work, but in the end, they are generally happy, and don’t regret their decision to chose each other. Most of the time at least, after all John still has a terrible temper, Sherlock still fills the fridge with body parts and life would be terribly boring if they were endlessly content.


End file.
